Panama, new tremor: magnitude estimated between 6.1 and 6.4, no victims in initial reports

The earthquake off the coast of Panama, reported in this morning’s edition without an immediate toll, has had a follow-up. On Monday, October 12, at 6:20 p.m. local time, a new tremor affected the center-south of the country, with the epicenter located in the area west of Río Grande.

The two institutions monitoring seismic activity in the area provide differing estimates. The United States Geological Survey indicates a preliminary magnitude of 6.1, with a hypocenter at a depth of ten kilometers and a location eighteen kilometers west of Río Grande. The Institute of Geosciences of the University of Panama instead places the event further south, thirty-two kilometers southwest of Soná, and estimates its magnitude at 6.4. The difference between the two readings has not yet been explained by either source and reflects the normal methodological discrepancies between different seismic networks operating in the same area.

In the reports gathered so far, there are neither victims nor material damage attributable to this new tremor, a picture that confirms what emerged yesterday regarding the main earthquake. According to the Panamanian website Informe56, more than four hundred aftershocks have been recorded since the initial event, a sign of seismic activity continuing hours after the first tremor.

The data on aftershocks currently comes from a single source (Informe56); no independent confirmation is currently available for the exact number of subsequent events, although the occurrence of aftershock swarms following an earthquake of this magnitude is an expected phenomenon in the seismology of the area.

The situation therefore remains one of no dramatic toll but of continued seismic activity, with two monitoring networks offering slightly different readings of the same seismic sequence and no local institution having so far released an update on any damage to infrastructure or homes in the Río Grande and Soná area.